News from the Adlershof University Campus

Call for Videos: Promoting early-career researchers

At the Long Night of Science, candidates for Berlin Science Week will be chosen:

How does your research improve the lives of Berliners? That’s the question asked at the Inspiration Stage during Berlin Science Week on November 7 and 8, 2026—and we can help you take the stage. As institutions in…

Agricultural production is the main cause of destructive fires in South America’s tropical dry forests

Research team has used satellite images to reconstruct the fire history of the Gran Chaco, one of the world’s largest dry forest regions:

Every year, vast areas of forest burn in the South American Chaco, a tropical dry forest region that stretches across Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay and forms the second-largest forest region on the continent after…

HU team takes third place at the German Robot Football Championship

Despite facing unexpected challenges at the RoboCup German Open in Cologne, the “Berlin United” team was successful:

The German Open 2026 Robot Football Championship took place from 10 to 14 March at the Cologne Exhibition Centre and presented particular challenges for the HU team’s four football robots on the pitch – yet “Berlin…

HU researchers develop molecular clamps controlled by light

The molecular photoswitches use light to adjust mechanical strain, enabling on-demand control of chemical reactions:

Controlling exactly when and where chemical reactions take place remains one of the central challenges in modern chemistry. Heat, mixing, or catalysts typically affect entire systems at once, offering little spatial…

Kick-off for the new data and AI centre at HZB in Adlershof

The data centre will provide a competitive infrastructure for data-driven research in Berlin:

By establishing a new data and AI centre in Berlin, the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) are laying the foundations for a scalable and sovereign data infrastructure in the capital.…

Why Berlin’s street fountains are still important today

Humboldt University introduces Timothy Moss, senior researcher at IRI THESys:

World Water Day on 22 March serves as a reminder of just how precious – and yet how limited – clean water is. This issue is also a focus of Timothy Moss, a senior researcher at IRI THESys at Humboldt University. For…

Despite the 2025 arson attack: Technology Park Adlershof continues to grow and remains confident and optimistic

Germany’s largest science and technology park continues to grow amidst an ongoing economic crisis / companies recognise responsibility for Germany’s technological independence:

The Science and Technology Park Berlin Adlershof continued its positive development in 2025. Revenues and budget funds rose by around 5% to over 4.2 bn. euros (2025: 4.0 bn. euros). The number of employees also…

Berlin Adlershof: Facts and figures

Berlin Adlershof is Germany’s largest and most successful Science and Technology Park as well as Berlin’s largest media location—embedded in an overall urban development concept. Spanning an area of 4.6 km², the park…

Ultrafast laser pulses bring diamond-based quantum internet closer to reality

Researchers from Berlin have demonstrated a new method for generating single photons in a diamond-based quantum system:

The controlled generation of single photons is an essential element of numerous quantum technology applications, such as quantum networks and quantum computing. A research team from the Integrated Quantum Photonics…

Girls’ Day 2026 at Humboldt-Universität

On 23 April 2026, the institutes at HU in Adlershof are opening their laboratories for school pupils:

At the Adlershof Science and Technology Park, school pupils gain exclusive insights into the world of research. At the Institute of Physics, scientists explain complex topics such as the Higgs boson or entangled…

Einstein Professorship for HU chemist Kallol Ray

The Einstein Foundation is funding the scientist’s research in the field of green chemistry:

Chemist and leading expert in bioinorganic chemistry and catalysis Prof. Dr. Kallol Ray will receive an Einstein Professorship from 1 April. His research in the field of green chemistry will be funded. Kallol Ray is…

Research team has developed an alternative spectral imaging method

Quantum interference makes MIR spectroscopy possible using simple camera technology:

Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy uses the molecular fingerprints of samples to perform biomedical or environmental analyses without chemical staining or labeling. Highly specific vibrational states of the different…

Efficient training

Alan Akbik, professor of machine learning at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is working on smarter approaches to language models:

ChatGPT requires vast amounts of data and costs a lot of money. Alan Akbik, professor of machine learning at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is exploring smarter solutions. No AI was used to generate this essay on the…

In conversation with Jens Nachtwei

The psychologist researches and teaches on the changing world of work and human–machine interaction:

“A humane future does not lie in more technology, but in greater human judgement in how we use it,” says engineer and organisational psychologist Jens Nachtwei in his book Zukunft der ARBEIT an der Zukunft, which…

Research platform for measurement data from the depths of the universe

Platform developed by HU and DESY makes data stream from the new wide-field telescope at the Vera Rubin Observatory accessible to astrophysicists worldwide:

The universe is full of explosive events – for example, when stars detonate or are torn apart near black holes. Very rarely, about once every hundred years, such events can be observed with the naked eye in the night…